Apparently there is a magic character out there that slays Apple devices. When trying to parse it, they become as confused as a voter analyzing policy or the average person contemplating the mysteries of the cosmos. Similarly, the Apple devices freeze, then crash, which allows a hostile attacker to do whatever they want.

Once upon a time Pestilence were a very capable death/speed metal band that would attain great heights with the their magnum opus Consuming Impulse. Leaving behind the speed metal of Malleus Maleficarum for greater freedom in melody and structure, “Out of the body” is by far the most popular track on this album due to its catchy main riff, guitar acrobatics and absolute intensity.

Those are only the surface traits of what makes this song and the album a bonafide death metal classic.

Strangle Wire are a northern Irish four piece band that follow the Slipknot tradition of naming each other numerically. The band claims to play psychological death metal with influences from Cannibal Corpse, Dying Fetus and Sinister. However, none of Sinister’s music appears here and this is typical Nu-Death metal.

Gibson Guitars are on the verge of bankruptcy per an article in the Nashville Times. The famed company is currently in a shitload of debt and its bondholders are panicking as their CFOs are abandoning ship. Despite bringing in a billion dollars last year, the prospects of Gibson are uncertain which begs the question: What future do high-end guitar brands have in a world that’s gravitating towards electronic music? And more importantly- is the death of electric guitar closer than we think, like many are claiming?

Bought an EP of Cold Dark Place by Mastadon, since the album cover looked cool, like a classic Aeternus. To my dismay, as I started track one, some horrible over-produced folk-rock attempt came blaring through my headphones, complete with horrible synced male and female off-pitched vocals. Another track has a weird, crappy beat and Jane’s addiction styled vocals. These songs are so bad that its hard to listen to more than fifteen seconds of each song before feeling violently ripped-off.(more…)

On a recent episode of “The Classic Metal Show” burnt out Pantera vocalist and famed roman-saluter Phil Anselmo admitted that his newest album Choosing Mental Illness as a Virtue was “only going to appeal to X amount of people, and that’s going to be a small amount of people.” By X amount, Phil was likely referring to the roman numeral for the number 10 as that is about the number of fans his band of soon-to-be deported illegal immigrants has. The album currently has a 46% score on Metal-Archives (already a low medium of standards) and virtually no one has professed a fondness for the album outside of the journalists who were paid to.

Political YouTuber Finntronaut has uploaded a silly new metal song and video themed after the “It’s Okay to be White” prank that violently triggered thousands of snowflake liberals earlier this season. While the song is not exactly good, it’s a pretty funny take on how ridiculous this culture war has gotten lately here in the U.S.A. Thematically the video takes no political position- it’s just a bunch of goofy satirical visualizations overdramatizing the racial/cultural tensions of this age.

Daniel Cochardo loves metal. It is no question- from his tenure fronting The Chasm, his work in Cenotaph and his contributions to the last above-average Incantation album Diabolical Conquest that the man is steadfast in his dedication to extreme metal. Throughout his impressive library of work, we haven’t seen any indication of a wavering of passion or hints of selling out in any way. What we however have seen is a middling assemblage of efforts that come close to sublime heights but ultimately fall short of the metal ideal. Therfore The Chasm has always flown a bit under the radar, consistently releasing material that has a unique voice commanding the charge but a lack of cohesion giving the music a timeless appeal. With CCI, The Chasm ends their longest drought between records with an assertive gesture in the form of an instrumental concept album, and although that may hint at a rejuvenated band that is hungry to finally make the profound artistic statement they have always fallen short of, unfortunately The Chasm has given us a release more puzzling than declarative.

Control Denied was formed in the mid-1990s by late Death-frontman Chuck Schuldiner to cater to his desire to explore more traditional metal stylings. Schuldiner, however, was still bound to Death’s contract with Nuclear Blast and thus agreed to record one more album under the Death-moniker before concentrating fully on his new band and musical direction. As a result, songs originally intended for Control Denied were shoe-horned into a death metal context on The Sound of Perseverance (1998) which partly explains the lackluster, two-faced nature of the last and arguably worst Death-album. With contractual entanglements finally sorted out, Control Denied’s debut The Fragile Art of Existence saw the light of day in 1999.(more…)